Time is a myth, time is real, time is unreal, time is....

[MrMrdevincamus]

Time is real because the world is real (or so I would assume). Its very hard to isolate one aspect of reality in the abstract and say “this is not real, but everything else is”. If time is not real, as the dimension governing motion in the universe, what else is or is not real?

Ill try to shorten the main body (in blue font) of this reply but for now I will give you the following. If you have all day you can read the more detailed version that follows this paragraph. The easiest way to explain it is to understand nothing we experience is in 'real time', so therefore its not the present moment as our brain tells us. In other words it is an illusion, it's the past masquerading as the present! Why do I say that? To understand my claim its mandatory to realize there is a small but real time delay that it takes our brain to interpret the raw information from our senses. So you see that interpretation, that myth our brain tells us is the 'present moment' is really the 'past'. The 'universe' has already moved on while we are living the past thinking its the present! There is a larger delay which relativistic effects makes the illusion of reality more profound when stars are used as an example. That is explained in detail below (in blue font).

The (tortuously) long version is below.



Thanks for your reply. You said/asked ; "If time is not real, as the dimension governing motion in the universe, what else is or is not real?" I do not want to be confused with a solipist* but my beliefs are trending that direction! But maybe we can avoid discussing philosophical theories by sidestepping them and doing what Einstein called a thought experiment. This thought experiment will demonstrate one of the many ways what we say is real is actually an illusion.

Let's say a human and his alien friend are observing the sun. The human was using a telescope set up for solar observing, the alien friend is observing with his eyes which he sees things happening in real time because its eyes use quantum entanglement instead of light waves as human eyes do. Ok, so while the two friends were looking at the sun the alien says "HEY DOG, THE SUN JUST WENT OUT, REALLY IT'S OUT!!!!". The human that is squinting in the telescopes eye piece says "You trippin' my green friend, the sun is still there, shining as bright as ever!!!!" And for added proof he says "Look its still daylight!". (end of thought experiment)...........We know what is going on, right?

The light from the sun takes around 9 min to reach earth even though its going around 186,000 miles per second. What this one example, the thought experiment demonstrates is the human's reality of the sun existing, shining away was a total illusion. If the alien got his Q.Entanglement powered star ship fixed, the real fun would begin! Of course it gets worse for those who believe the 'reality myth' our brain tells us when even longer distances (than one Au) are plugged in. Again I am sure many if not all of you all know, the stars we see in the night sky are what they looked like in the past, not 'now'. Some are as they looked thousands to millions to billions year ago. Some are already 'dead', exploded or died a heat death, but to us they look like young stars.

The reason I gave the alien Quantum entangled enabled eyes is because QE objects (virtual pairs) transmits information 'instantly'. This has been verified by experiment**. This is only one reason I think everything we experience is not real, its an illusion produced by our senses. I hope this didn't put everyone to sleep.....

Notes;

*.........Definition of solipsism : a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing also : extreme egocentrism. (from the web)

**....... QE has been proven to exist, and verified by experiment. There is no way that QE can be used for information exchange etc, unless there is some kind of breakthrough (to say the least!) I used QE fantasy to make the thought experiment a little bit more understandable (I hope).

 

[Laika]

What this one example, the thought experiment demonstrates is the human's reality of the sun existing, shining away was a total illusion.

I think this is more a comment on the finite nature of knowledge and the limits of our perception rather than demonstrating reality is an illusion. The sun is real and the sun is producing light, but our perception of that is limited by the distances from which we are observing it.

Put another way, if you look at a four-legged table from precisely the right angle, it may have three or even two legs. But that doesn't mean the table ceases to have four legs, it's just our perception of that object/phenomena is limited. With additional information, we can revise our ideas to better reflect reality.

EDIT: I'm going to include this link to "Einstein and the Philosophical Problems of 20th Century Physics". It's a Soviet textbook that would argue the reality of time and space as is consistent with dialectical materialism. I do have a copy, but haven't got round to reading it yet.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

I think this is more a comment on the finite nature of knowledge and the limits of our perception rather than demonstrating reality is an illusion. The sun is real and the sun is producing light, but our perception of that is limited by the distances from which we are observing it.

You are one of the few people I've met that glean information from diverse sources and build a sometimes unpopular but I think accurate overview of problems like the issue of (what is and of) time being real. The reason I added the quote from Gödel in one of my replies is because it's about the limits of language. So in the above statement isn't what you the very definition of illusion? In my example the human observer assumes that illusion of the sun being there/existing is reality. The humans reality is a myth, but the alien is seeing the sun in real time so the sun and its activities are a closer approximation of the sun as it really is. As I tried to explain in the 'alien/human thought experiment, the delay issue of light speed reinforces the 'sun exists illusion'. Worse still there are more processes, things & reasons that work to create the myth we all know and love as reality. The way humans and most if not all life forms see not truth but a world and universe that proceeds along a mythical timeline that lives only in our brain ! Some of those 'world views' involve luminal and neuro time delay and some do not. All that font I have produced describes natural biological processes that to me seem designed. Designed? Yes, more in the last paragraph. The delay factor seems obvious even dull not very interesting until....

Ha! A fabricated paragraphical delay of levity! Ha eehhhaa' sorry my humor is worse than my writing style. Anyway, for our purposes we can say the 'time' delay factor altering our perception of reality is caused by the properties of light speed interacting with biology.(there are other processes involved further allowing the illusion to be validated, but they are imperceptible). Some of the 'delay processes' that contribute to the illusion of reality are caused by how long our brain needs to process sensory and other information and knit it into what we think of as reality. However, things get really interesting when we do thought experiments involving near light speed velocities and black hole levels of gravity! At those levels natural laws are suspended and altered allowing for realities that science fiction writers haven't yet imagined! And that is leaving out quantum processes, and extra, even infinite theoretical dimensions ! But that is another far more interesting thread!.

Put another way, if you look at a four-legged table from precisely the right angle, it may have three or even two legs. But that doesn't mean the table ceases to have four legs, it's just our perception of that object/phenomena is limited. .

Yes that is a fact. However, our time delay reality is permanent! It's as if humans were biologically mandated to always looked at the tables from the weird angle you describe, and so those people would assume all tables were leg challenged! Also be aware that the thought experiment example was just that, an experiment trying to explain a unusual idea, maybe an hypothesis even more hopefully an abtheory**. As mentioned above this kind of time delay illusion is only one* of many natural and synthetic processes etc that causes a myth interpreted as what we think of as truth or as reality. ….. ** abtheory An abtheory is a bad theory....not funny ? Its more bh .

With additional information, we can revise our ideas to better reflect reality.

Yes, true that is why I didn't call the human an astronomer. Because an astronomer would know the sun he observed was as it was about nine min in the past. However your concern is only demonstrating the limits of my bad example of an thought experiment! Its just not the sun not being as it really is its everything in the universe being an illusion. And I haven't even touched on relative effects such as time dilation which exist at low velocities and gravities. I apologize for not being able to explain this better, but I hope you (and other members if they are reading or awake!) can understand at least some of this post!

EDIT: I'm going to include this link to "Einstein and the Philosophical Problems of 20th Century Physics". It's a Soviet textbook that would argue the reality of time and space as is consistent with dialectical materialism. I do have a copy, but haven't got round to reading it yet.

Thanks, I like new reading material! Soviet scientists are highly underrated by the west due to our pro-capitalist's anti-anything else nations humongous and brutally effective propaganda efforts. Still as a veteran with a PsyOps MOS, I love our system, its got warts and worse but I think its the best in the world at this time, but I am biased. I am afraid I disagree with the Soviet textbook text book if its saying Dialectical materialism having a relation to space and time. However its fairly dumb for me to do that with out even reading the book. I am thinking that our brains interpreting a time delayed reality doesn't suggest evolution played a part in it. Its precisely opposite in my personal opinion. The time delay and others processes that contribute an altered reality as well as the limited reach of science etc. points to a CREATOR or an intelligent designer.

Thanks for your reply!!


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[shunyadragon]

As others have described time is real in the space time nature of our physical universe. One of many possible universes. Einstein was probably correct that the concept of the past present and future of time is an illusion, but without time you would not have E=mC2.